Painting fish scale & Sunburst

[mifarmmomma]

On the street side facade of our Farmhouse is the only thing that I believe is original that is in repairable condition! Our Sunburst & Fishscale shingles! Next summer we plan on shingling the main house, and painting. We are going with a buttery yellow on the siding, with acent colors yet to be determined.

We don't have ANY houses within our county that has this detail, and I only know of 1 other in a Historical District in the large city near us (65 miles away) that has something similar (If my memory is correct!)

I'd like to paint the sunburst using 3 or 4 colors, and the fishscales the same. I've looked, and looked on-line, but can't find any information as to what the "correct" way to paint this would be.

What do you all suggest?

I should add, this West side facade faces a major state highway, and has a covered porch. The porch we will be redoing as well, since we have 4 mismatched posts (all different carvings..ugh!), and the porch roof slopes, making it look like it's falling down. Hubby's grandpa built the porch floor so that it sloped, but didn't make the roof straight

[Civil War Seamstress]

I see you have 7 posts up.. Welcome!!!

Pictures of what you are working on help. Even raw and uncensored help those who will provide the advise you seek.

You could try some web sites like Flikr and look at victorian houses and get tons of ideas.
There are also houses called Painted Ladies and Daughter of Painted Ladies. I got some useful inspiration from them.

More lovers of paint will jump in and help out...just wait.

[wletson]

yup gotta see the front of your house. Show me a shot, and I will attempt a virtual paint job if you woulf like.

[S Melissa]

Taake a look at http://www.historichousecolors.com and see what you find. Painting a house is among the most difficult decisions. We all struggle with it. In sunbusts I've seen the higher panels are painted a darker color than the receeding panels - but in the same family - like a gold-tan color against a buttercream type thing. Or a deep blue-green against a lighter medium green -

But the best advice I can give you is scan a picture of your porch with the sunburst onto your computer - print it off as a black and white photo - then sit down with the colored pencils and play - it will give you lots of fun all winter. You'll arrive at a good idea of what you want by spring.

[mifarmmomma]

Thanks for all the good suggestions! I 'm going to try to get my digital to work for a few pictures (need a new one). I'll try to upload it in the next few days. It's taken 9 years just to get my hubby to paint it something other than all white...so now that we've decided on Yellow...I need to make the decisions over winter on the rest of the colors.

[Mrs._d]

Here's a photo of our 1893 Queen Anne Victorian. You can see the variety of paint shades on the sunburst.

Above is our house photograph taken 1905, second girl from the left is the daughter of original owner/builder.

Above is another house that is similar to ours.
Sorry, I don't have any details of the vergaboard.
Mrs. D

[YinzerMama]

No help to the OP but Mrs D, what is the story with the plant??? There must be a story there that they would haul that thing out to have its picture taken. Hilarious!

[mifarmmomma]

Mrs. D, once again, I had forgotten that you had a pcture of what I was looking for. THANK YOU!!!!! It's pretty similar to that sunburst, only it's not on the ugly porch, but the roof line. I'm definately going to go with my instinct and paint it several colors. THANKS everyone for the suggestions, I'm going to have a lot of "fun" trying to figure out paint colors this winter.

[wletson]

but, where are the pictures

[melissakd]

You want strict correctness, we'll give ya strict correctness! I've been a disciple of the Historic Color Guy ever since I heard of him from S Melissa.

Victorian Exterior Decoration informs us that fishscales and other shaped shingling was typically painted one color, not several.

Another warning I've read is that San Franciscans of the 1970s were after something showy, which gets mistaken for historical authenticity; the Victorians, generally speaking, wanted to harmonize with the surroundings.

The big fashionable concepts through most of the period from 1850 to 1900 were appreciation of and harmony with nature, a finely developed aesthetic sense, and anything you could describe as "artistic" or "picturesque."

This meant you never, ever used primary colors, instead sticking to tertiary colors like peacock blue, bittersweet, and silver-gray.

mkd